Defense Tech is on a Tear!

Defense and dual-use texhnologies

Good morning,

Some big news throughout this week. Let’s start with the great news that the Defense Tech sector has had its best year with ~$3B invested into startups so far in 2024. This is despite seeing a slight downtick in the number of deals, showing that growth-stage funding in this market has proven resilient. Anduril has led the way with it's $1.5B round, followed by Helsing raising half a billion. There were also several large 9-digit raises including Saronic and last week’s announced raise by Chaos Industries.

Next, over the past few months it appeared there had been a bit of thaw between the U.S. and Chinese militaries as high-level talks had picked back up after several years. Well, that’s come to an abrupt end as China’s defense minister turned decided to cancel conversations with Secretary of Defense Austin, following Austin’s IndoPacific road trip. This comes on the heels of Xi’s aggressively worded caution to President Biden in Brazil last week to stay out of what C…